Drive-by-wire systems are becoming more prevalent in vehicles, particularly for selecting operational states of the transmission. When using a gear selector of a drive-by-wire system, the operator moves the selector from a default or neutral position to indicate which gear should be selected. Some transmissions and systems constrain the selector to certain gear selection maps, preventing a direct change from, for example, a forward drive gear to the reverse gear.
The drive-by-wire system typically includes a display for communicating to the operator the gear in which the transmission is currently positioned. This is particularly useful to operators who are comfortable with previous models of transmissions wherein a gear was selected by positioning a lever or shifting arm in a designated location. Because the drive-by-wire selector returns to the default position after a gear change command, its position does not reflect the current gear engaged by the transmission.
Additionally, because the operator does not adjust the transmission by physically positioning the selector, the operator relies exclusively on the display to perceive the state of the transmission prior to operating the vehicle. The system relies on sensors and logic for determining the state of the transmission prior to displaying it. As such, an imperfection may result in an incorrect displayed gear location, which is undesirable.